30 Kisses: 2x6x2
by Cozzybob
Summary: 30 themed oneshots involving Zechs, Duo, and the word "kiss." Some contain yaoi, some contain het, and some are just pure interpretation.
1. Look Over Here

**30 Kisses (2x6x2)  
**-Look Over Here

Disclaimer: Me no want pennies from this FANfic, me no ask pennies from this FANfic, me no beg pennies from this FANfic, me no make pennies from this FANfic, and so me is poor and thus, me not have any pennies to give to Sunrise and other such Gods me worships daily when they sue me and take me away to the Bad Place for copyright violations and other such evil things that me no like. Me no want trouble. Me just poor and very stupid. Comprende?

Pair: A most definite 2x6

Warning: Yaoi, lime, angst, possible sap, odd-ness of the creepy-Cozz variety, probable OOC (s'not cannon), the usual. Post-war.

Note: This is a series of 30 oneshots themed from the 30kisses community on livejournal. The oneshots all involve Zechs, Duo, and the word "kiss." Most of the oneshots will of course be yaoi, but some will be gen or het as well. This specific oneshot's theme is number 1, "look over here."

-

"Look over here" a voice calls.

And so I turn to look, and no one is there.

I frown, scratch the blonde stubble of my chin before running a hand through my hair. It's night, cold, and lonely, and still damp with the aftermath of thunderstorms. I can almost see my breath fogged in the dim moonlight... dim, because the moon is hiding behind her precious clouds, avoiding my shameful existence.

Hm. It's been three years since I last saw the moon, since I really paid any attention to it... and now I don't care. It doesn't matter. The moon doesn't want to see me anymore... none of them do.

Do they?

"Look over here." A whisper against my neck. I shiver and spin around.

Again, no one is there.

I'm in a forest, about a half-mile from the house I've rented in the backcountry of the Adirondacks. I suppose I'm hiding out from the world now that life has moved on beyond the wars, beyond the fear for the Earth's destruction, but that's just an excuse I like to tell people when I get drunk enough to really care about it.

No, I like the forests, I like the night, in these old oak woods. I like to breathe the essence of a lost age. It reminds me of home, without having to step beyond the edges of my parole.

That's right. Parole. They put me on parole, when I got back from Mars.

I snort in the darkness, a hot puff of air bursting from my nostrils. Like they can stop me.

I sigh, trying to relax the tension in my shoulders. I close my eyes, inhale...

And it comes again. "Look over here" the voice calls, from my blind side. I tremble again, fear laced with the ever-unholy anticipation running through me.

And something else…

A soft, smooth, whispered laugh. A grin voiced in words. "...over here, Zechs... where I can touch you."

I turn, very slowly. There is a silhouette in the darkness, shielded by the shadow of the trees and the moon's shame of the Earth. I can just barely see lips twisted in a manic smile, exposing sharp, white teeth. They stab the air like knives in the black darkness surrounding us.

His head tilts to the side and a long nut-brown rope of strong, hard hair brushes against fabric, swaying lightly in a soft breeze. He shakes his head, those lips softening to a rueful expression. He folds his arms and leans back against the nearest tree.

"Looks like you lose, Z-boy. Again."

I mutter quietly under my breath. I know he can hear me. "You're too damned good at this game."

A laugh, louder than before. Free. "That's because it's my game to begin with."

I say nothing to that. It's true.

He made the rules, and it was his idea.

I'm just the victim, always will be in this situation.

I tilt my head to the side, considering him. I still cannot see his face. "Come here" I say quietly, knowing full well that it is not my place to do so. I lost the game, he found me first, and now he gets to make the orders.

But I never did tame easily. If he wants me, he's going to fight for it. Just as they all did, many times before. "Come here, so I can see you, Duo."

He shrugs and doesn't move. "You know the rules. I'm not going anywhere. _You_ will come to _me_." There is a carefree authority to his voice. He doesn't need to carry a whip and chains in order to win my bondage.

And I know that better than anyone. I take one step toward him, not enough to close the distance between us, but enough to feel the heat of his skin in this cold and desolate place.

He laughs, amused at my resistance. He knows he's going to win anyway, but that's the not point. We both knew he would win before we started. "Just two more steps, Z-babe. Two more and then I get to touch you. Don't you want to be touched"

I fight a shudder at the images those words put into me. That voice. I hate it when he does this to me, completely disarms me without even... touching me. He tames me with his voice.

Am I that weak"No" I shake my head. "I will not." I will not move...

"Come here" he says, his voice firm. I catch glint of determined blue-black eyes and this time, the shudder wins my body entirely. I lose. Again.

He sees it and he smiles. "Come here" he says softly, motioning me closer with one shadowed finger, crooked, like a wicked witch of the wood.

I fall under his spell. Had been ruled from the start. I take another step.

I look at him almost nervously. I know it shows on my face, because I can hear it in my voice. "...Touch how"

"With my lips." A brief hum of amusement.

I close my eyes and shake my head. "No tricks."

I can almost feel the roll of his eyes. "Of course not. Come here, Zechs."

"No."

There is a deadly silence. He says nothing, only waits.

I sigh, and step forward.

He touches my face and his fingertips are very cold. I open my mouth to tell him so, but he puts those fingers before my lips and makes a hushing noise.

So I hush. I don't say a word.

I just stand there, and wait for the world to end.

"Look at me, Zechs." A soft whisper.

I don't move. I don't think I can do that.

I stare at the ground.

Those fingers, ever cold, lift my chin. I cast my eyes to the side to avoid him. I know he's staring at me, waiting. Those eyes of his are burning my skin.

"Look over here."

Slowly... I look. He's smiling. It's a soft, sincere expression. And his eyes, deep and solemn, are almost violet now, glittering in whatever light it can soak up to see.

My body is solid, but my voice is thick. "What do you want"

"To touch you..." He trails an ice cold finger along my jaw line. "...with my lips."

He wraps his hands around the back of my neck and pulls me down to him. He puts his lips onto mine, and he kisses me.

I kiss him back.

And suddenly, the moon is exposed from her clouds. Light pours in around us. I'm not so cold anymore. I'm not so angry. Or anxious.

I don't care very much about it. It doesn't matter anymore.

I kiss him, steal his breath for my own, and fight with him, wanting to make him mine.

For a moment.

All is right with the world.

A/N: I really don't understand this one, which is probably a bad thing since this is the very first in the series. Care to tackle it? Maybe they'll be better as the times go on.


	2. Goodbye, My Friend

**30 Kisses (2x6x2)  
**Goodbye, My Friend

Pair: 6x2 (had to be fair to Z-chan, after all... .;)

Warning: male/male relationship, post-war, various Zechs-related spoilers for the series, the usual breed of angst, fluffy endings. Kind of.. cliché?

This theme is #2 - news; letter.

* * *

A man stands at a grave, his head bowed, the long flowing locks of a great blonde mane swaying in a soft breeze-cold, but somehow soothing. He stands there, tall, his body powerful, his expression thoughtful, his eyes shut tight to hold in some kind of faint unbearable pain. In his fist, clenched tight, is a letter. It is sealed in a standard envelope, addressed with the rough, damaged script of an ex-count, ex-prince, ex-lieutenant... and ex-soldier.

Carefully, as if with little air to his name, the man sighs, and slips his tragic, angry eyes open, eyes the color of a frozen lake in a place where no man has ever tread. He looks around him, taking yet another perimeter check, and bends down, kneeling in the snow. He shivers, a wave of doubt washing through his body before he tightly shakes his head, that mane trembling, and sets the envelope on the pedestal of the grave's tombstone. He frowns for a moment, in deep thought, and then lifts the envelope again, smoothing out the creases his tight fist had caused, silently desperate to clear away the agony in such a holy place... of rest.

Knowing his limits, the man sighs, drops the envelope, and walks away.

Some minutes later, a great breeze pulls though and the envelope flies into the wind only to tumble down on the sidewalk running through the cemetery a few feet away. Another man, a different man who had been walking down this sidewalk, headed for the same grave as the previous man, stops before the letter and looks down at it curiously.

The envelope reads in rough, damaged handwriting: _mein Freund_.

This new man knows the previous man very well, but not well enough to recognize the other's handwriting. He thinks nothing of the fact that he knew full well the other man would be here today and he was going to meet that said man at the grave, to confront him about some rather troubling feelings in just a little while... a little more... no, he wanted to confront the other man, the previous man, the sad and angry man about some feelings that have been driving him away from every human being he'd ever crossed paths with since the day the last of his family had died. He was upset, this new man, and very disturbed, and so when he ran into the letter, provocative and needy as it were, he thought nothing, no ill manner, in picking it up.

The man quirks a little smile, a small, but bright light, and shakes his head ruefully. "My friend?" the soft voice mutters. "I suppose I am a friend to a place like this." The last of the note is bitter and tinged with sheer regret.

He looks around, scratches a chin unshaven and raw, and sighs heavily. His incredibly long brown hair is threaded into a braid, his skin pale from lack of sun, his eyes bagged from lack of sleep, his clothes the deepest black from a life of sin... and his jeans have more shreds than fabric-which are neatly arranged with safety pins-his boots are thick, steel-toed, and the blackest black he could ever hope to find in the back streets of city life. But he is hardly gothic. He knows better than that, especially after all these years. He was death once, back in the war. When he was soldier. And you just don't obsess about the things that give you nightmares, no, you tend to run when you're a broken sobbing heap in your bed every night, clutching a pillow that provided all the comfort of barbed wire and HIV...

Of course now, for the first time in his life, he is a civilian. An unarmed one with no needs to carry a gun nor pretend to, and that makes all the difference for him. He has no friends. No real ones. He doesn't matter to anyone anymore.

He stares at the letter, trembling, and sighs lightly. He knows that he shouldn't, he knows it's not right, he knows it's rude... he knows it's not for him, but fingers peel back the sicker seal of the envelope and before he really knows it, the letter is unfolded and his eyes are roving the page.

When he reads the first to words, he takes a slight breath of air and leans against a nearby tombstone. The shade of a statue towering over him is comforting, and he inhales the scents of nature before plunging down into oblivion.

The letter reads:

_Dearest Treize-_

_You confuse me. You have always-intentionally or not-confused me. I know that is a sad thing to say to a ghost, but honestly Treize... you left me with so many damned questions, and where do I find those answers? You made me die for you, back during the war. Twice. Once you ordered it from me, and the last... you stole my sanity away so that I would give it to you willingly._

_I died for you twice._

_So why am I still alive? _

_...And why are you dead? Hell, why did you have to die at all? You were supposed to be immortal, you're own breed of god for all of human history. You were supposed to rule the universe and everything in it. You were made for that, Treize, you were everything, you were always just like that._

_You weren't supposed to die._

_I was supposed to die._

_And I lived._

_And you... you're dead. Gone forever._

_Sometimes I like to imagine that I hate you, because of that. Sometimes, I like to pretend so that it's easier to except the fact that you're dead and that you will never come back. It's very hard, though. Very hard, even though there are so many things I could hate you for. You're just a hard person to hate, even by me, maybe especially by me._

_But I always did adore you, didn't I? I remember the way our fathers would look at us in that accusatory stare, contemplating, while we both sat in comfortable silence without a care in the world for anyone. You were always larger than life for me, always four years ahead and four steps behind, where you could see me clearly, where you could understand me, where I could do nothing about it._

_I adored you. I wanted to be just like you. You were the brother I never had-a hero, a rival, and ultimately, a friend. When the Sanc Kingdom first fell and my parents died when I was six, my sister was taken away, and I was abandoned. I had no where to go and no where to run. I was lost and no one gave a damn, because who would care to take in an exiled prince being hunted down by an army of blood thirsty pigs without any regards to innocence? But then of course you found me like you always did, and you took me home, to your home, where you raised me under your wings and your family. You gave me my new name, you made me my new face, you made me that other person and turned me into a soldier. You made me into Zechs Marquise._

_I know you trained me into war with little choice-after my first kill, I had no control, and I needed the taste of that vengeance stealing my soul away. I know you admired the beauty of it as well-you took me under your wing and had me join the very organization that had killed me in the first place so that I would destroy them from the inside out. Destroy him, and all he fucking had._

_I killed him, and I did it face to face. You gave me his name and his location, Sank, where it all began, and I killed him. For years, I thought I would revel in it and enjoy it, maybe just once, for a little while, but it was just like all the others._

_Nothing. I felt absolutely nothing. I felt... hollow. I felt wrong._

_I was never meant to be a solider, Treize. You made me something I was never meant to be and that hurt. It hurt me so very badly... I hated it, and for a while, for a day... for a minute, maybe... I wanted-want-to hate you. But again, I could not._

_So I left you instead._

_I don't know why you said my name as you died. I don't know why you still think of me as your friend after what I did-both to you and to... everyone. I don't know why... I don't think I know anything anymore. I just..._

_I'm sorry, Trieze. I need to let go, and I need to move on. I can't do this anymore._

_I can't miss you, hate you, love you forever. I can't. I just... I can't._

_I'm sorry._

_I've fallen for someone else. I didn't want it at first, I was so determined to be alone-everyone I'd loved had gotten hurt either by me or someone else, and that's not what I desired anymore. Every time I loved, things went bad, it always did, my entire life. But then I found out that this person who wanted me, that I also wanted... he felt the same way. He had the same problem. The same nightmares for the same reasons._

_It felt good to know that I wasn't alone in my misery, and so after years-yes, years-of admiration... I let him in._

_I let him know how I felt, and how he felt about me. I told him that I thought I loved him. Maybe._

_He didn't say anything, he didn't know what to say, and so I don't know if it will work out or if I am once again left to brood here in my dark little corner where the dried blood keeps me company and the love is a distant thought. I don't know what's going to happen, I can't say anything for sure... I just, I don't know..._

_But it doesn't matter. I need to leave you in peace, and that's what I came to do today. I will never be free to love him unless I let you go._

_I need to let you go. Need to, because... I guess I love you too. And I never want to hurt you._

_Thank you for... being my friend._

_Goodbye Treize. I'll see you on the other side._

_-Milliard_

The man reading the letter frowns in wonder and carefully folds it, slipping it back into its envelope. He looks around, ashamed that he read such a private thought, and steps away from the tombstone he'd been leaning against.

But then he catches sight of what name had been written on the stone and he chokes out a sour laugh. It says Treize Kushrenada; hero, friend, and father to many. It is a memorial, not a tombstone. It has the story of Treize's life etched in granite and bronze plating.

Gingerly, the man bends down, his braid slipping over his shoulder, and sets the envelope on the pedestal again. He puts rock on it so it won't fly away.

He stands there for a minute or two, contemplating. He doesn't know what to think.

The other man wanted him.

The other man said goodbye to Treize... so that he could have him.

So that they could be free.

He stands there, deep in his own thoughts, staring at the name on that stone, and he does not hear the steps of the other man approaching from behind, his name a breath on the other's lips.

"Duo..."

The man with the braid spins around and catches sight of the previous man, the one who had set the letter down on the pedestal in the first place. Unlike the man named Duo, the previous man with the long blonde hair wore white in every crevice and looked very much like the angel he was not.

Duo looks away, close to ashamed, but more... uncertain. "Zechs."

The previous man tilts his head to the side, the blonde mass shifting like liquid silk, and frowns deeply. He shakes his head. "It's all right," he speaks quietly. "I wanted you to read it, I wanted you to know... I'm not angry..."

Duo looks at him, his eyes shaken. "Did you mean it?"

"...mean what? The letter?"

"No, did you mean it when you said you... when you said you thought you could... when you thought you..." A tiny line forms between his brow as he grunts in frustration. "Zechs, do you-"

"Yes, Duo."

"-love me?" His eyes widen in comprehension as he hears the words two seconds too late. All the breath leaves him and he is stunned.

Zechs smiles softly, running a hand through his hair and sighs. Then he bends down and very lightly kisses Duo on the lips. "Yes," he says almost invisibly. "I think I love you."

"You mean it?"

A snort. "Yes."

"You're sure?"

Zechs grabs Duo, his arms winding around the other's body, mouths barely touching, breaths mingling. Duo simply stands there, waiting with uncertainty.

"Yes, Duo. I'm sure."

And he kisses Duo again, and Duo kisses back, where Treize could see them both, and know that his friend had finally found a home.


End file.
